Monday, October 26, 2015

It may seem like a Twilight Zone episode, but yes the New York Islanders may be running into some salary cap problems in the coming years.

Now before we panic and consider trading Kyle Okposo, Frans Nielsen or some other part of the Islanders core let's take a look at what the issues are.

Right now the Islanders sit about Six and a half million under the cap. The issues are Kyle Okposo, Matt Martin, Frans Nielsen will be unrestricted free agents, and Casey Cizikas and Ryan Strome are going to be restricted free agents. If Garth Snow were to re-sign all five, not make any trades the Islanders could easily be over the salary cap.

Contracts coming off the board will amount to roughly three point six million in players likely not to re-sign in the off season with Mareck Zidlicky, Brian Strait, Eric Boulton and Steve Bernier. That gives the Islanders general manager about ten million in cap space to work with assuming no one gets traded.

The biggest raise due will be to Islanders right wing Kyle Okposo. Other comparable players are earning in the neighborhood of five to seven million in average annual value (AAV) so lets just cut that in the middle and say Kyle is going to get an 7 year deal worth about 42 million putting his AAV at six million per season. That leaves just 4.5 million in room.

Frans Nielsen in mine and a lot of other peoples opinions is one of the most under rated players in the NHL. That being said, he is not a front line center, but if you think he or his agent does not see the five million dollar salary Mikhail Grabovski is earning and says.. yeah.. That is my number Garth. That eats up the remaining cap space right there.

Strome will be in for a raise, probably in the 2-3 million dollar range, Cizikas and Martin will also be in for raises and I would not be shocked if another team over pays to get Martin and offers 2-4 million per season. Look at the contracts Brendan Prust and Benoit Pouliot got.

Some tough decisions are going to have to be made this off season. Now if Garth Snow can clear some cap space maybe by trading some assets and giving some line up spots to Michael Dal Colle, Josh Ho-Sang, Matthew Barzal or one of the other prospects in the system, then maybe it would be possible to keep all of the free agents the team has. Who would be expendable?

Playing arm chair GM for a minute, as well as doing pretty well in my "Be A GM" mode in NHL 16, the first two names that come to mind are Nikolay Kulemin and Mikhail Grabovski. After this season both players will have two years left on their respective contracts. Now if Garth Snow could find someone to take the two off his hands he would have to be very careful how much of that cap savings he uses because at the end of the 2018 season some guy names John Tavares is going to have to be paid, and paid very well.

In closing, in order to keep Okposo, Nielsen and Martin Snow is going to have to make some sacrifices or let Kyle walk away, which absolutely no one wants to see.

Tuesday, March 4, 2014

I am going to resume writing this blog now without the support of Bleacher Report and The Islanders Blog Box. It has been a tough year personally and I did not write for a long time and writing about the Islanders was something I really enjoyed despite the team's struggles. Enough about that let us jump right back in.

I sat at the Islander game on Sunday against Florida watching the Islanders blow for a loss the twelvth third period lead of the season that had me wondering why I continue to support a team that is so inept. The answer to that question is pretty simple as I am sure it is the same for the 13,000+ fans that showed up on Sunday also. We love hockey and we do not abandon our favorite team. If you were going to abandon the Islanders believe me, we would have done it by now considering the calamity of failure Islander fans have endured.

If you look at just this season you shake your head in disbelief at what has gone wrong in Islander Land.

Charles Wang has completely vanished. Look around the Coliseum and you will not see him any where. Is he afraid of fan backlash from fans angry about the move to Brooklyn? Is he embarrassed at the teams horrendous performance this season? Is he looking for a buyer for the Islanders? No one knows the answers to these questions because Mr. Wang simply is not talking. We as fans can speculate but at the end of the day all that and a rain shower gets us is wet.

The team has absolutely no idea how to play with a lead. The Islanders are really good at jumping out to leads. That in of itself shows the team has the talent to compete at a high level in the NHL. Sure their defense is on the weak side and the goal tending has been questionable but the team has the talent. John Tavares, Kyle Okposo, Tomas Vanek, Frans Nielsen and Michael Grabner give them the scoring punch up front. The young players Ryan Strome, Brock Nelson and Anders Lee bring a ton of promise. The defense with Lubomir Visnovsky (when healthy) Travis Hamonic, Andrew MacDonald and Thomas Hickey are quick and mobile.

I know what you are thinking. If all that is true, what went wrong this year? The answer is quite simple. You can blame goaltending, injuries, a weak defense but the blame must fall squarely on Head Coach Jack Capuano's shoulders. The man is supposed to be the one who teaches the team not only his system but what to do in certain situations such as holding a lead. If the team does not know how to play with a lead, which the Islanders obviously do not, then there is a reason for that. Jack Capuano has failed at his job. I like Capuano as a person but he is simply out of his league here. For the first time in years the Islanders came in with high expectations this season after last years run to the playoffs.

If hockey was a two period game the Islanders would be among the top teams in the NHL. If you look at the numbers they are simply staggering. The Islanders have taken 15 games into the third period with a lead and wound up with a loss or an overtime loss in THIRTEEN of them. That constitutes a loss in points of roughly 20 points. People wonder what the problem is this season with the Islanders? There it is right there. How Jack Capuano still has a job is simply mind-boggling because the on ice performance of the team falls directly on his lap.

The Thomas Vanek trade has been debated about for months and now he is on the verge of being traded from the Islanders along with long time Islander Andrew MacDonald. Both turned down multi-year contract offers to stay with the team and why would they want to stay? The team this season is going no where and the prospect of playing for a contending team this season has to be enticing to say the least after the way this season has gone. Now Garth Snow has the task at hand of unloading both players before tomorrow's trade deadline. Why Snow has not traded either player yet is also vexing in that one injury to either player and they walk for nothing in July when free agency begins. Both players should have been dealt when it was apparent that neither was going to sign extensions.

The problem is with trading Vanek and MacDonald is I do not want Snow to come away with trading these two guys and wind up with only draft picks. What good are draft picks to the Islanders? They are already chock full of young prospects waiting for an opportunity to play in the NHL. What good are two or three more draft picks? No. Garth Snow needs players in return for both who are ready to come to the team and challenge for spots next season. If Snow comes away with only draft picks I will view the trades as failures. The Islanders need to start winning. The Islanders need players who can help now. not in three to five years.

I do not know if Snow's job is in danger but it should be. If Garth Snow does not clean house behind the bench this off-season, then he himself also clearly needs to be replaced. Most people think Garth Snow should be fired right now. I do not disagree with this assessment of his job performance. I just do not believe for one second that Charles Wang will fire him and neither does anyone else. Capuano is clearly coaching out the string as he has no contract beyond this season and there is no way he comes back next season. What message does this send to the players? Jack Capuano has made more mistakes this season and simply has no clue what to do when the team has a lead. What more information does Garth Snow need before he cuts the coaching staff loose?

Thursday, March 7, 2013

This has got to be the first time in years than the New York Islanders and New York Rangers will face off with equal amounts to lose and gain at the same time on both sides.

The Rangers have been near the top of the NHL for the last few years and the Islanders have been near the bottom of the NHL for a good while. Sure Islander Ranger tilts always have a little bit of rivalry juice in them but that juice has run largely dry the last few seasons. The problem was Islander-Ranger games have been for the most part meaningless. Beating the Rangers used to be the only thing Islander fans had to look forward to at this point of the regular season. Now? Things are a bit different.

No it is not a make or break game for either team but make no mistake about it: Whoever walks out of Nassau Coliseum with two points tonight is going to feel pretty good about themselves in the morning. The Islanders are one game under .500 for the season and two points out of a playoff spot. The Rangers are looking to keep their recent winning streak alive and advance higher in the standings where they are used to being.

Both teams are fighting against wild inconsistencies this season and both teams at times have looked like contenders only to turn around the next game and look like pretenders.

Tonight's game could go a long way to restoring this rivalry to the heights it once enjoyed. Both sides fan bases used to look at every Islander-Ranger game as a playoff game and a game that had to be won. You could sense a true dislike in the players of each team when they played. Goal celebrations had that extra fist pump, body checks had extra bang behind them. Fights seemed more intense. The crowd hung on every pass, check and shot. The rivalry used to garner national attention as one of the best not just in hockey but in all of sports. Now they can't even get on a "Wednesday Rivalry" game on NBC Sports. The game when I checked this morning, still had tickets available, something that would be unheard of back in the day.

The reasons for the lack of interest are obvious. The Islanders have not been very good at all and the Rangers have had their rivalries with the Devils and Flyers amped up because of the playoff battles they have had. Meaningful hockey is the key to it all. The Islanders have been a floundering franchise looking to gain a little swagger by beating its rich successful rivals to the west. Have the Islanders returned to playing meaningful hockey again? Tonight's game will go a long way in answering that question.

I miss the days of this rivalry when the game was just not another game. When it was an event. When players from both teams would talk about playing each other like it was special and not like now when it seems like it is just another game. When the Islanders move to Brooklyn it will bring automatically a renewed interest to the rivalry but maybe the Islanders and Rangers can lay some of that groundwork to reestablishing this rivalry as one of the best in sports tonight at Nassau Coliseum.

Friday, March 1, 2013

In attending last nights latest Islander loss in overtime to the Toronto Maple Leafs it suddenly dawned on me while I was sitting in Nassau Coliseum that the place is all used up. Its finished. Its time has passed. Granted a winning franchise would make the place feel differently but the Islanders have not done any of that with any consistency at any point in the last 20 years.

Some people will say that winning will solve all of the problems and make the place happening again. Guess what? It wont. The New York Yankees drew horribly in the early 1990's until they started winning world series again. The thing is no one in their right mind will ever compare the old Yankee Stadium to the Nassau Coliseum. Yankee Stadium, with all of its issues as an outdated facility had character. It was a venue that lived and breathed sports history in spite of its status as an outdated venue.

Despite the Islanders success in the early 80's Nassau Coliseum has never had that aspect of being a mecca of sports. It has never been a place steeped in hockey history. It was never maintained or presented as a top flight venue. It was always just adequate enough to house the Islanders. The shortsightedness of John O. Pickett, the Islander owner who signed the Islanders to the worst lease agreement in professional sports back when the Islanders were one of the premier teams in the NHL. That lease is finally coming to an end in 2015.

I received tickets to a Brooklyn Nets game and attended the game with my two boys on February 22. From the moment we arrived in Brooklyn until the moment we left the event the arena, the concessions, the amenities everything lived and breathed first class. Make no mistake this venue is a place that NBA players have to be looking forward to coming into and playing the sport they love instead of that look of pity visiting hockey teams give when they have to play a game at Nassau Coliseum. Not even one year into their move to Brooklyn, the Nets are an attraction. They are something unique and are treated and looked at as a first class organization. Top flight NBA players are coming to the Nets as a destination they want to play and the Nets are a power in the NBA as opposed to being a joke.

The value of having a marquee destination to play cannot be understated. The problem for the Islanders is they have to wait to move to Brooklyn's beautiful Barclay's Center and play out their prison sentence in Nassau Coliseum for two more years after this season. Something has to be done about this. The Islanders need to be paroled. They need to relocate to their new shining jewel of an arena sooner than later. Why? Because all they are doing in Nassau Coliseum is all they have done for the last 20 years, and that is tread water waiting for the rescue ship to come in and bring them to greener pastures.

In traveling to Brooklyn for the first time to take in the Nets game I made sure to be observant of everything I possibly could. So much has been said about how traveling to the Barclay's Center was going to be more difficult, more expensive and more time consuming. Depending on where you are traveling from this may or may not be true. Islander fans in Suffolk County and out east would be better served taking the LIRR to the arena (Atlantic Terminal is literally across the street from the front door of the arena) but that does not mean that driving is impossible. I decided to drive and park in one of the lots available near the arena. I bought my parking pass online for 20 dollars drove to the arena and found the lot with no problems at all. The total travel time was 50 minutes from Popeye's in Westbury to walking into the doors of the Barclay's Center. Yes it was that easy. 40 minutes of driving time and an 8 minute walk to the doors.

People will say oh I can be at the Coliseum in 10 minutes. The reason getting into the Coliseum is so easy these days is because the attendance is in the proverbial crapper. I'm not sure how many people remember what it was like getting in and out of the Coliseum when people flocked to Islander games in the early 80's. To be short, it was horrendous. If you factor everything into the mix getting to and from the Barclay's Center will take you longer than Nassau Coliseum but not nearly to the levels you would think.

Walking through those doors at Barclay's Center you are met with friendly, smiling greeters welcoming you to the Barclay's Center. I have been to a lot of venues, and I have never been met with this kind of greeting. It was warm and inviting and a great experience. The concessions and the amenities available are simply top of the line and not so especially expensive as say Madison Square Garden or Yankee Stadium. We had infinite choices for refreshments, food, shopping for Nets gear, tickets or anything you could possibly imagine. One very nice touch was that at every concession stand they offered famous Brooklyn eateries specialties.

Then we arrived at our seats. We were sitting in the section of the seats that will be annexed for the extended room needed for the hockey playing surface at one of the ends of the arena. To put it mildly, the sight lines are spectacular. The seating is roomy and comfortable. The atmosphere in the arena is exciting and new. The sound system is spectacular. The scoreboard is amazing. The video boards throughout the arena are HD clear as crystal. The arena announcer is a professional and he presents the announcements in a way that gets you excited to be there. The presentation of the game was absolutely amazing. The way the floor was lit was not destroyed with light but perfect. My sons who are 13 and eight, were amazed at the presentation of the game itself and the full house crowds reactions to the action. I have taken them to many Islander games and I cannot remember them being so impressed with the show the home team put on from the product on the court to the public address announcements to the way the game itself was presented.

Things like this cannot happen at Nassau Coliseum. After sitting in the Barclay's Center and then sitting in Nassau Coliseum essentially back to back, you simply cannot understand what simply moving this team to Brooklyn will do for the Islanders. They are currently in the worst arena in pro sports, they have the worst accommodations of any pro team in the country in any league. Moving to Brooklyn will bring an excitement and a new energy to the team. Imagine if Ryan Smyth had come into the Barclay's Center when the Islanders traded for him. What about other free agents that have spurned Islander millions to take less to go elsewhere. What about all of the players who have been traded to the Islanders react as if they are being sent to the NHL's version of Siberia? There is a reason the Islanders are having to scrape the bottom of the free agent barrel and scouring the waiver wire looking for anyone who can come in and help the team.

Its because no one with any modicum of freedom wants to play for the Islanders unless they have no other alternative. That is why John Tavares signing his six year extension with the team was such a shocker. Here is a marquee player, a budding superstar committing a six year extension two years before his contract expired that had the hockey world in an uproar questioning whether Garth Snow had some compromising pictures of Tavares in his back pocket. The national and Canadian hockey media was absolutely stunned that someone would commit to playing hockey for the Islanders long term. The Islanders main problem is not all players are John Tavares and will sign with them based on loyalty and the desire to bring the Islanders back to their long awaited former glory.

Mark my words. When the Islanders move into the Barclay's Center no one will question why a player would sign with the Islanders. Make no mistake about it. That is why Charles Wang has to do everything in his power and buy Nassau County out of the last two years of the lease and get his team into Brooklyn sooner rather than later.

All my kids asked me the whole way home was why the Islanders can't move there now. They didn't complain about the drive or the walk to the arena or anything else and neither did I. I have ask the same question: Why cant they move there now?

Thursday, November 15, 2012

The NHL lock-out has entered day 60, Thanksgiving is one week away and we are again in danger of losing another entire NHL season 7 years after having already lost an entire season.

That statement in of itself is so out there ridiculous when you consider what exactly is at stake here.

Both sides are content to sit and play to the press and tow the line and tell the public that the other guy is wrong and they are the one who is not at fault for the lock out.

A lot has been said about 50-50. Split all of the revenue down the middle and lets play hockey. After all there cant be an NHL without the teams, and there cannot be an NHL without the players. It would seem the NHL and its players association are in the same boat and its a 3.3 billion dollar boat and they cannot decide which state room to call their own.

All fans of the game want is there to be hockey to watch especially in times like this. I live on Long Island. This is an area that was just ravaged by Hurricane Sandy and things for the fortunate ones who still have homes are slowly returning to normal. For those who lost their homes well that is another story. They are staying with relatives, good samaritans, shelters and hotels waiting for insurance money or FEMA assistance.

Think for a minute how it must feel when all of they things that you work for are floating around in the Atlantic Ocean all while two spoiled children are fighting over a 3.3 billion dollar pie. Maybe if the NHL was in session it could give someone who has lost in this tragedy something to think about other than how they are going to recover from a disaster.

Another casualty of the NHL lock out are jobs. There are thousands of people out of work right now in direct cause of the NHL lock out. Arenas have cut back in staff. Teams have laid off hundreds of workers because right now, the NHL is out of business. You can take it further than that. What about the popcorn vendors, concession workers, team store employees, box office workers, security personnel and arena ushers.

Take it further than that. How about the small business owner? The bars, hotels, restaurants and shop owners who are doing no business thanks to the lock out?

Everyone mentioned above are fans of the NHL. They may not be hockey fans but they make all or part of their living off of the NHL. Not while this joke of a lock out continues.

So much has been made of "make whole" provisions to make sure players get every cent of every dollar they have coming to them. That is understandable but who is going to make all of the people listed above whole?

The NHL owners do not care about fans in the respect that they know that they will never want for anything. I cannot feel bad for guys in the NHL owners who basically have NHL franchises as play things and if they play or do not play it really doesn't effect their lives one way or another. If the NHL folded and went out of business they would write off the loss and move on and look for another multi-million dollar toy to play with.

The NHLPA does not care about the fans in the respect that most of them are millionaires many times over and have risen above a normal life of the 99%. They play hockey for a living. Granted players are under intense pressure from the media and fans but at the end of the day they play a game for a living. I know not all of the NHLPA are millionaires, but a very high percentage of them are. If the NHL went out of business tomorrow they would do as they have done now and that is go find hockey to play somewhere else.

Will their lives be effected? Sure. Will they still play a game for a living and make millions? Yes they will.

The fans of the NHL are its bread and butter. The NHL does not make a tremendous amount of money from TV like the other three major sports do. They need to build the game without major TV money. You do that by putting out an entertaining product on the ice and draw as many people to the games as possible and build a fan base to the point where more people increase the TV ratings. The bottom line in the NHL is if you do not draw at or near capacity over a season you do not turn a profit.

You cannot continue to grow a games fan base when you shut down the league every few years to argue over more money than any fan will ever see in a lifetime.

NHL fans are fiercly loyal this is true, myself included. You would think if this is the case then why does the NHL and its players treat its fans so poorly. Damage is being done to the fan base of a league that depends almost entirely on its fan base to spend big money to come to the 30 arenas in the NHL. After the 2004 debacle I would not for a long time spend my money on the NHL. Why should I? I watched games on TV sure, rooted for the team sure but I was not going to spend my money on a league and players who would cancel an entire season of hockey over money.

Time heals all wounds right? I came around eventually and started buying tickets, jerseys and NHL things again. I will go on record and say this: If they lose another entire season over money, I will not spend my money on the NHL again. There are people who will go right back but they should not. If another season is lost the fans of the NHL should ban together and boycott this game if and when each side decides they have enough of the golden nugget.

Imagine this. The NHL loses another season as talks break down and there is no time to fit in even an abbreviated season. Next summer the NHL and NHLPA hunker down and get a deal done. They both write long drawn out meaningless apologies to the fans and take full page ads in all NHL cities newspapers apologizing for losing another season. They open their doors and finally start playing hockey. The Rangers open at Madison Square Garden in front of 2,500 fans. The Toronto Maple Leafs face the Montreal Canadiens in front of 3,000 fans. Edmonton and Calgary open in front of 2,200 fans. The Stanley Cup Champion LA Kings open against St. Louis and raise their Stanley Cup banner in front of 2,000 fans.

Do you think they NHL and the NHLPA would get the message? This would be the NHL fans, the equivalent of the skinny wimpy kid punching the bully of the NHL and NHLPA right in the nose. The message would be received much like it was received by Major League baseball when attendance and ratings were down huge after they lost the second half of the season in 1994.

It took years for baseball to recover from the strike of 1994. Granted the NHL fan base is not nearly as large as baseball's. That is no excuse. If the NHL loses this season if attendance and ratings are not down by a large margin then as fans we are accepting of this treatment by the NHL and the NHLPA and will be inviting the same in the future.

In short, there has to be repurcussions. There has to be pay back. If there isn't, then we are just as bad as the NHL and the NHLPA for accepting it.

Thursday, October 25, 2012

The saga is over Islander fans. We now know something that has been a question since the mid 1990's. The New York Islanders, who have called Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum home for 40 years are leaving the aged arena for the brand spanking new Barclay's Center in Brooklyn.

We will have some time to contemplate how this is going to change our hockey lives as Islander fans because as of right now, The Islanders have to honor their lease which anchors them to Nassau until 2015.

Shocked? Surprised? Angry?

These are words that I am hearing from a lot long time Islander fans. The anger however is not directed at Islanders owner Charles Wang for the most part. It is directed at those who are squarely to blame for the Islanders moving west. The story begins back in the 1990's as the Islanders were owned by what Islander fans have known as the Gluckstern-Milstien disaster. These guys were the saviors at the time, rescuing the Islanders from John O. Pickett and his absentee ownership as well as the NHL's debacle allowing a scam artist in John Spano to "buy" the team when he could not even afford to buy season tickets.

The Gluckstern-Milstien disaster was basically the Islanders ownership group trying to have the Nassau Coliseum condemned so they could break the lease with Nassau County and try to strong arm the construction of a new coliseum. As we all know, you cannot strong arm your way through Nassau County red tape and Town of Hempstead politics. They moved the Islanders offices out of the building and claimed it was unsafe to inhabit an said the Islanders would not play any games in the arena. They even went so far as to say that the scoreboard was in danger of falling from the ceiling.

Tom Gulotta, the Nassau County Executive at the time called the Islanders owners "pigs at a trough" for trying to strong arm a new arena out of the county. Maybe not the best way to negotiate for a new arena? Once it was clear that the ownership was not going to get what they wanted they immediately gave up and slashed payroll to the bear minimum and put the team on the market again.

Enter Charles Wang and his ex partner Sanjay Kumar and the Islanders have had something they haven't had in what seemed forever. Stable ownership. Not only stable ownership but one with super deep pockets and a desire to work with, not against the powers that be to get what The Islanders and Nassau County needed - a renovated or new Nassau Coliseum.

There is no doubt that Charles Wang bought this team and the Marriott Hotel right next to the arena and other surrounding properties as a means to an end. That end would be the much ballyhooed "Nassau Hub" project. Which has been talked about for many many years as a "destination spot" for Long Islanders to be able to come live, shop or see a show or a sporting event. Charles Wang had grand plans for this project which he had designed and called "The Lighthouse Project". Partnering on the deal with monster real estate developer Rexcorp gave the project a real shot at getting off the ground.

Mr. Wang did not try to force this project on anyone. He did not try to get the tax payers of Nassau County foot the bill. This was going to be a privately financed monster construction project that would have created construction jobs for thousands of workers. It also would have created much needed lower to mid cost housing for singles out of college looking to build a life on Long Island. The Lighthouse project went through several design iterations during the long, drawn out approval process. Ultimately the project was given Nassau County approval. It was given New York State approval. Then it fell to the governing body known as the Town of Hempstead. Surely this would not be an issue, right? Surely they could see the benefits of such a project, right? Surely they would work with Mr. Wang to get this deal done, right? Wrong. Instead of trying to work with Mr. Wang and his Lighthouse project the Town of Hempstead had the audacity to come up with their own vision of what they thought should be built there going so far as to present an artists rendering.

Excuse me? Since when does a publicly elected governing body tell a private developer what he can build? They presented a zoning plan that cut down the project to such a level that not only did Charles Wang not see the value in it, no one else has seen the value in it either. Not one private developer has seen a way they can take the Town of Hempstead's zoning plan and create something that is economically viable.

That ended the Lighthouse project as Mr. Wang saw no further options and killed the project. If you didnt see the writing on the wall there, then I have a bridge to sell you.

But wait. Newly elected Nassau County Executive Ed Mangano has a plan. Why don't we ask the people of Nassau County to foot the bill and we can repay them with the revenue a new arena would bring in! Sounds brilliant right? The people of Nassau have voted themselves thousands of dollars in tax increases every single year in school budgets without anything to show for it other than the school districts saying "vote for the kids". It would have cost the Nassau tax payers a minimum of $12 a year in increases to build the arena. Oh. Wait a minute I said minimum. What about the maximum? The maximum one time tax increase would have been $58. No people that is not a typo. We could have had a new arena built in Nassau County and had our taxes raised a maximum of $58 dollars a year. Not every year, but one time.

No matter how small the amount, the ill informed masses came out to vote against the referendum voting it down 57% to 43%. That people would be the final straw. The main reason people voted against it is because they said Charles Wang is a billionaire. He can afford it. Oh he can afford it? Does that mean he should biuld a $300 million dollar arena that he doesnt own on land he doesnt own? Maybe If you can convince me that anyone would pay money to build something that is not theirs maybe you can get Charles Wang to build me a new kitchen.

The bottom line is that this was the last ditch effort to keep the Islanders in Nassau and it not only failed, it tanked because it showed the short sightedness of a majority of the people who voted.

Enter Brett Ratner and his brand spanking new Barclay's Center, opening its doors and saying hey it isnt perfect but I want you here. They will build the Islanders a state of the art locker room, training facility and give the Islanders the stability they craved in Nassau. They will in one swoop, bring the Islanders the solid foundation that players can look at and say to themselves that is a place I want to play, not a place I go when no one else wants me. No people, those days are coming to a close.

Charles Wang tried everything to do what was best for Nassau County. He spent tens of millions of hos own money keeping the franchise running. He spent tens of millions of dollars on plans and development studies. He spent thousands of hours negotiating the political red tape and politicians empty promises to come up with nothing. All the while this jewel of an arena was growing brighter on the horizon promising everything that Nassau County has failed to deliver.

For the Islander fan who is angry at the situation look at it this way: Charles Wang knew when he bought the team he had a long hard road ahead but all he had was time. He had 15 years on the lease with the County. 12 years later, tens of millions spent, countless hours wasted, countless lies by politicians told the end of the road is here. There is not enough time for the team to get an arena done. Not only that there are no prospects for an arena to be built. The County sent out a Request for Proposals this year and what have they gotten in return. Nothing. The Town of Hempstead's zoning plan makes redevelopment of the 77 acre site a non starter with an arena on the site.

If you want a villain, look at Kate Murray and the Town of Hempstead. This is the reason we will be boarding the LIRR to watch the Islanders in 2015. And you know what, we will do it.

To me it comes down to a simple fact. If we are still fans of this franchise after all of the trials, jokes, embarrassments, bad trades, bad contracts, leaky roofs, free agent failures, embarrassing promotions, that ridiculous logo change, Mike Milbury, Neil Smith, and other issues that have surrounded the team if moving 22 miles to the west is a deal breaker, then you were never a true Islander fan to begin with.

Tuesday, June 26, 2012

The Islanders used the 2012 NHL draft for one express purpose. That was to revamp the teams number one problem in 2011. Before the draft Islanders GM Garth Snow sent a 2013 second round pick to the Anaheim Ducks for 35 year old NHL veteran blue-liner Lubomir Visnovsky.
Visnovsky is an outstanding pick up for the Islanders for many reasons. One is his cap hit which at 5.6 million is exactly what the team needs to reach the salary cap floor. Then there is the fact that his actual salary is three million, which helps maintain the Islanders low budget.
In addition he also presents an outstanding trade chip option should the team falter in 2012-13 and fail to challenge for a playoff spot. He will be an unrestricted free agent after this season so he does not come with a lengthy commitment.
Now the to the nuts and bolts. He is an excellent puck moving and power play defenseman who with Mark Streit will make either an excellent 102 punch on the point with the Islanders power play, or be the backbone of the number two power play unit. Either way the Islanders pathetic power play has been vastly improved.
Onto the draft itself. What would the Islanders do with their pick? The top three picks went exactly as most people thought with Nail Yakupov, Ryan Murray and Alex Galchenyuk going with the first three picks. There was a collective gasp with NHL commisioner Gary Bettman walked to the podium and announced the there was a trade to announce. Were the Islanders trading down? Did they trade the pick for a veteran?
As it turns out all Bettman was doing was announcing the Islanders aquisition of Visnovsky. Garth Snow was on the clock and there was pretty much one name most of the fans in the know wanted to hear. 6'4" Griffin Rienhart was the kid the fans wanted and when Garth Snow walked up and made just that pick a wave of cheers and applause went through the almost ten thousand people at the draft party.
When exactly Reinhart will be in an Islander uniform is anyone's guess. It is doubtful he will be in an Islander uniform this season. The Islanders defense for 2012-12 looks to be set from one through four with Mark Streit, Visnovsky, Travis Hamonic and Andy MacDonald. Who will be the fifth and sixth defenseman you ask? Well Its time for Calvin de Haan to show he belongs in the NHL and he should fill one of those spots. Then you have Ty Wishart, Mark Katic and Aaron Ness who should all get consideration. One wild card could be 6'4" Scott Mayfield who should get a long look in prospect camp.
On a side note, or maybe it isnt a side note and should be more front and center, the Islanders are hyping the heck out of their "Inaugural Game" at the Barclay's Center in Brooklyn. The are selling T-Shirts hyping their "Inaugural Game" in Brooklyn. I will examine this development in my next article. Please discuss these and any other topics you want.